No Run Support for Hamels Once Again

Cole Hamels pitched well, but was tagged with the loss. He finished after 7 innings. Hamels cruised through six innings allowing just a home run, but hit a bump in the road during the seventh inning. The Rockies weren’t completely crushing the ball, but strung a few hits together, including some bloop hits and infield dribblers.

The Rockies added two runs in the eighth inning as Justin De Fratus gave up two runs in 2/3 of an inning.

Offense Woes Continue

The Phillies were shut down by Jhoulys Chacin, who almost threw a complete game shut out. Chacin was an out away from the shut out before Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard drove in a run a piece. The Phillies only squiggled out four hits before the ninth inning. Chacin had less than 80 pitches entering the ninth. After Howard’s RBI, Chachin was pulled and Domonic Brown struck out to end the game.

Once again, the offense is to blame as they lacked support for Hamels.

Not to be contrary but Hamels occasionally loses concentration during a game like the pitch he threw to Rosario. Although he hasn’t had run support, Hamels hasn’t exactly stepped up his performance to win a game or two like a well compensated staff ace should.

Right there with you, Lefty. And I would feel that way even if they didn’t play in what’s been a weak division so far. For example, here, we are, following back-to-back losses by the Phils, and back-to-back wins by the Braves. And in spite of that, these are the NL East records since 4/19, after the Braves’ hot start:

It has been difficult for me to watch the Phillies. Trying to get some perspective of what is wrong with the Team, the Leadership, the day to day operations folks, something is not right. Where is Dave Montgomery? We had a streak with D. Brown, but that has faded very quickly. The top of the lineup is pretty dead, occasion life at the end of the line up, but not with regularity. I do feel for Charlie, “hard to teach an old dog new tricks” his statement of last year keeps making the rounds of our tv watching. What happened to Rollins, Howard that they would allow themselves to perform this way. It is going to be hard to have a rebuilding year or years when you have so much dead wood tied to long term, huge contracts. We counted the other day and more rebuilding in six years. Oh, Phillies, say it isn’t so.

No more sellout streaks for the Phillies and I am hoping to be able to get good seats a lot cheaper later this year and next season. Best part of this is that pretty soon we may see some new young talent which translates to hustle and “fun to watch”.

Rollins, Utley, Howard, Ruiz, Hammels and all the Phillies of the 2000-2011 years gave us the best baseball we perhaps have ever seen in Philadelphia Phillies history. I’m sorry to see it disappear but it has. It was fun! Thank You

Didn’t even watch. You knew Hamels would pitch well enough to win, but the Phils’ offense would make yet another mediocre pitcher look like an ace. It really has to be in their heads at this point…there’s just no other explanation for how they just don’t score any runs when Cole is pitching.

Glad I didn’t watch, because there’s no excuse for a guy (especially in Coors Field) to enter the 9th inning with a pitch count under 80. Will this team ever learn to work a count?!? This team’s offense isn’t near good enough to be up there just hacking with no plan. They don’t hit for average, get on base, hit for power, and half the lineup is painfully slow. You couldn’t construct such a poor lineup if you tried, yet Rube has managed to, and spent a crap ton of money in the process.

OK so 12 batters swung at the first pitch…that’s terrible. Swinging at the first pitch is OK if it’s your pitch in the spot you were looking. You don’t have to swing at the first pitch just because it’s a strike.

Our starters throw a lot of first pitch strikes, yet the opposition manages to work a lot of deep counts against us.

The average MLB rate of 1st pitch swinging is 28%, which would have meant 9 first pitch swings, instead of 12.

Point taken, I agree that better hitters can work the count and can withstand the first strike. These hitters aren’t that good. Hitters, on average, are much more successful putting the first pitch in play, than they are starting from an 0-1 hole.

9 first pitch swings vs 12 is basically a whole inning of batters (especially with this lineup going down 1-2-3 so many times lol). That’s quite a lot of extra pitches the opponent doesn’t have to throw.

Frankly, I was a little surprised that Hamels did pitch that well vs the slugging Rockies. It just goes to reinforce how much we need a real offense. Which all leads back to Ryan Howard.
Take him out of the lineup, put him under a microscope and get the problem fixed then reinsert him. Its for his good, for the teams good and, its not too late.
In the interim, bring up the Rufian – hey, how much worse could it get out there?